Tuesday, 5 June 2012

Of the public image


When I began imagining I would become an author, I never imagined doing it publicly. I might tell about it to my family, but since I would be using pen names, no one else would know. There is certain appeal in anonymity, at least for me.

But the reading audience doesn’t really like faceless authors, does it. I know I always check the back flap of a book to see what the author looks like, and if there is no picture, I’m very disappointed. It doesn’t matter what they look like – although, once, an author I thought would be a woman turned out to be a man instead, which threw me. I just want to know. And I know most people want to know too.

So, faced with this dichotomy, I ended up voting for putting my face out there. The decision was so sudden that I didn’t even have a proper photo of myself. At the very least, I thought I would put on some makeup and comb my hair and sit down for a portrait. Instead, I just took the least offensive picture of me I could find and put it out there for everyone to see. Maybe no one will look at it too closely.

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